


Untitled (Witchcraft)

by DoctorTrekLock



Series: Contemporary Arts [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Aromantic Character, Contemporary Art, Gen, Implied Character of Color, Magic, Museums, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:17:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorTrekLock/pseuds/DoctorTrekLock
Summary: “I’m about 97% certain the art isn’t supposed to look like that,” he said, gesturing around the room.The piece in question was a new installation by an American artist who had quite modern views on the definition of “art.” When Imelda had arrived at the gallery, the piece had consisted of an odd assortment of colorful household objects arranged in some sort of chaotic pattern across the floor.“I’m pretty sure it’s called Down on the Ground,” the man continued. “Though I suppose he may have rethought it,” he concluded dubiously, hands in his pockets, eyes roving over the knickknacks that were now arranged quite geometrically across the open space of the gallery from about four feet to twelve feet off the ground. Not a single piece remained on the floor where the artist had, presumably, meant it to be.





	Untitled (Witchcraft)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for aroacelibrary’s [2018 Aromantic Halloween Event](http://aroacelibrary.tumblr.com/post/178513555244/hi-all-i-was-planning-to-wait-until-saturday-to).
> 
> This was inspired by a couple different pieces of art by Tom Friedman. The original post that led me in this direction is [here](http://doctortreklock.tumblr.com/post/178800311502/i-am-the-only-grad-student-in-a-class-of). Photographs of both pieces of art mentioned here are imbedded. The images are from Wikimedia and there are links to them in the endnote as well.
> 
> Beta-ed by ImprobableDreams900 and Spinner12. Thanks, dears.
> 
> Edit: Apparently AO3 is in a different time zone than I am in. I swear, I posted this at like 8pm on Halloween.

 

“They are going to _kill_ me. This is _terrible_.”

This was just like the time in junior high when Shiraz had vanished the mayor’s pocket poodle at a fundraising gala.  That hadn't ended well for her friend then, and Imelda doubted this disaster would be any kinder.

“This is so bad.” What would they do to her if they found out about this? “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

Imelda chewed the edges of her fingernails as she paced frenetically back and forth across the gallery, one hand touching her mouth and the other flailing frantically by her wild mass of curls as she muttered under her breath.

“Um,” a voice piped up from the corner of the room. Imelda whirled out of her manic pacing to stare at the intruder, her ring finger still hovering by her teeth. The young man seemed unsettled by her sudden focus on him, but recovered quickly. “I’m about 97% certain the art isn’t supposed to look like that,” he said, gesturing around the room.

The piece in question was a new installation by an American artist who had quite modern views on the definition of “art.” When Imelda had arrived at the gallery, the piece had consisted of an odd assortment of colorful household objects arranged in some sort of chaotic pattern across the floor.

“I’m pretty sure it’s called _Down on the Ground_ ,” he continued. “Though I suppose he may have rethought it,” he concluded dubiously, hands in his pockets, eyes roving over the knickknacks that were now arranged quite geometrically across the open space of the gallery from about four feet to twelve feet off the ground. Not a single piece remained on the floor where the artist had, presumably, meant it to be.

“I...uh...” Imelda stuttered. She gazed hopelessly up at the hovering figures as she tried to figure out what to say. “Yeah,” she concluded weakly, deflating in despair.

The man took a cautious step further into the room, then several more after the anvil and skateboard he walked under hadn’t crashed down on top of him. “Right,” he said slowly. He continued inching closer to her, stopping near a chain of paper links. “Can I ask what you're doing here? I mean,” he clarified, “it _is_ almost midnight, and the museum tends to be a little empty after eight. Y'know. Since it's closed to the public and all.”

Imelda winced. “Yeah,” she repeated, her shoulders hunched a bit. Then she took a breath and straightened, her hands falling to tug her blouse straight. “I got into an argument with my best friend - my shitty  _ex_ -best friend who can’t take no for an answer,” she immediately corrected. “I was upset and the contemporary gallery always makes me feel calmer, so I sort of, uh, broke in,” she finished quickly.

He blinked twice. “Without tripping any of the alarms?”

She grimaced. “I, um, kind of have a talent for ruining systems.” She gestured ruefully around the gallery. “Case in point.”

The man fought the smile that was lurking around his lips. “Well, then. It's a good thing I have a talent for putting things in order.”

It belatedly struck Imelda that she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t actually supposed to be here right now. She furrowed her eyebrows and raised a finger. “Question.” She paused as she tried to figure out how to politely ask if someone was a thief, and then gave up. “What's up with your own breaking and entering thing?”

He looked puzzled for a moment before he made the connection. “Oh! No, no. I work here.” He gestured behind him with his thumb toward the doorway that he had entered through. “I've been cataloging some new paintings that just came in. Y'know,” he made half-hearted jazz hands. “ _Overtime_.”

Despite herself, Imelda snorted. “Right,” she drawled. Her eyes tracked upwards again toward the still objects hanging in the air, and she huffed a sigh. “Any ideas?”

The man quirked his lips to the side and give the floating art a contemplative look, before sliding his gaze to Imelda. “I might have,” he admitted.

He didn't say anything after that, so Imelda gestured impatiently for him to continue. “And...?”

He sighed and seemed to give in. “Alright. So you know how I mentioned that I have a talent for putting things in order?”

Imelda nodded slowly.

“It's pretty similar to yours.” He smiled weakly. “The curator says I'm _magic_ with the collections database.” They weren't quite jazz hands this time, but he did waggle his fingers in an attempt at spirit fingers.

Imelda gaped at him for a moment before launching into a flurry of questions. “What? Really? I've never heard of anyone outside the Conclave with a talent. What can you do? Is it just organization or can you fix things? What about things that are meant to be uneven or asymmetrical? What if—” She broke off when she noticed the man's eyes had gotten overwhelmingly large. “Oh. Sorry.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “Got a little carried away.”

There was a beat of silence. “Right.” He forced his gaze back toward the air. “Since this isn't naturally occurring—” He shot her a look. “—I'm not sure I'll be able to completely reverse it—” Imelda grimaced at his pronouncement, but he wasn't looking at her. “—but I might be able to contain it.”

Imelda's eyes snapped to him. “Contain it? You mean isolate the spell within an enclosed, bounded space?” He looked startled, but nodded. “Madam Constance did that at the exhibition last year, but it's apparently really hard to learn.” She looked at him shrewdly. “Where did you learn it? You wouldn't have been allowed at the Conclave; it's all women.”

His mouth twisted ruefully at that. “That wasn't always a problem.” He moved on quickly before she could ask any follow-up questions. “Anyway, I should be able to contain it to a sphere about—” he glanced around, studying the room, then held his hands up about a foot apart “—yea big.”

Imelda shelved her curiosity. “Alright.” She nodded. “What do you need?”

Fifteen minutes later, they had the spell set. The man, who introduced himself as Thomas, ran downstairs for a length of string, a grease pencil, and a pack of bubble gum. He set Imelda to drawing a set of concentric circles on the polished concrete floor while he walked the perimeter of the room, inspecting the layout of the floating articles. When she’d finished, he tucked the pack of gum in his pocket and stood at the edge of the smallest circle. Thomas rolled his shoulders, shuffled his feet a little, then held his hands out in front of him, palms inward, and took a breath.

Five minutes after that, the bits and bobs of the exhibit that had been fixed to static points in space clattered to the floor. Every object in the air – from the scale model of the _Enterprise_ in one corner to the small blue child’s chair in the other – dropped to the ground in one motion, hitting the concrete like a sheet of rain.

Standing utterly still in the middle of the focusing rings Imelda had drawn on the floor, Thomas stared intently at the foot-diameter space between his palms. His hands were still held in front of him, and as Imelda watched, he turned and carefully began stepping around the exhibit, concentrating steadily on the trapped spell he held.

Thomas picked his way through the veritable minefield of art, ever so gently moving toward the wall near where Imelda had come in. She shifted to watch him. Imelda knew from Madam Constance’s demonstration that this was the trickiest part. Capturing the spell itself was relatively simple; keeping hold of it until the containment could be fixed in place was much more challenging.

He reached the wall and set his feet so that his fingertips were an inch or two from the smooth wall. He held his hands there for a few moments, his brow furrowed in concentration and his tongue sticking out between his teeth. Then Thomas gave a short nod and relaxed, cautiously pulling his hands free of the space and taking a slow step back, then another. He nodded in satisfaction and turned to Imelda, brushing his hands together briskly. “Well. That should do it.”

Imelda looked behind him at the blank stretch of wall skeptically. “And you're just going to leave that there? Forever?”

He shot her a look. “You could at least say thank you first.”

“Right. Sorry.” Imelda took a breath. “Thank you for helping. I mean, thank you for basically doing all of it. I'm not sure how I would have fixed it on my own. Though,” she added with a smirk, “we could have just changed the name to _Up in the Air_  and left it, I suppose.”

Thomas snorted and glanced back over his shoulder. “I guess we really shouldn't leave it like that,” he admitted. “The containment will be there until your spell fades, which might take years. Who knows what damage it might do in the meantime if someone bumps into it.” He considered it for a moment, then clapped his hands together. “I've got it.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow, I'm just going to—” he glanced at his watch “— _today_ , I'm just going to pull out a pedestal, anchor the spell to the pedestal instead of the wall, and slap a label on the wall next to it, something pretentious like _Untitled (Curse)_.” He shrugged. “I'll stick a record in the collections database and make sure it gets shipped with space for the spell. Piece of cake.”

Imelda laughed. “That might actually be more impressive than the containment.”

Thomas faked an affronted look and put his hand dramatically over his heart. “Well! I never. I can't believe abusing my collections manager powers warrants more praise than single-handedly reversing the untold damages you inflicted on this poor example of modern artistic ability.”

“But in all seriousness, thank you. I really don't know what I would have done if you hadn't shown up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he brushed off. “Just help me clean up this mess.”

The grease pencil came up with little effort and none of the pieces of the art installation had broken during all the excitement, so clean-up didn’t take too long.

“You know, Imelda,” Thomas said as she pointed out the last bit of grease he had missed on the floor, “not to sound like a creep, but it's a little late, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get to sleep right away after all this excitement. I’m also kind of curious as to what you were doing here. You wanna get some hot chocolate or something? There's an all-night cafe nearby.”

Imelda hesitated, then gave Thomas an appraising look.

“As friends,” he quickly clarified.

“Alright,” she agreed with a small smile. “Friends. I’m not really interested in relationships anyway.”

“Cool. You ready to go?” With the last line of the focusing circle erased, the remains of the spell were deemed sufficiently cleaned up, and Thomas gestured for Imelda to lead the way out of the gallery.

“Now I gotta ask,” Thomas continued as they began walking back through the museum towards the entrance. “What's up with this gallery? I mean, you _like_  contemporary art?”

Imelda blinked at the question. “Yeah?”

“ _Why?_ ” Thomas implored, his hands curled beseechingly toward the air in front of them. “I mean, don't get me wrong, I work at an art museum, okay? I _know_ it's all important,” he told her. “But _contemporary_  art? It's not even _real art_!”

“Okay,” Imelda interrupted. “I'm going to stop you right there.”

Fin.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants my take on Imelda’s argument in favor of contemporary art or information on working in a museum, hmu.
> 
> Links to _[Up in the Air](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Friedman_\(artist\)#/media/File:Up_in_the_Air_\(Tom_Friedman\).jpg)_ and _[Untitled (Curse)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Friedman_\(artist\)#/media/File:Untitled_\(Curse\)_\(Tom_Friedman\).jpg)_ , both by [Tom Friedman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Friedman_\(artist\)).


End file.
